engleski

Modeling impacts of low-carbon technologies in the context of sustainable development in Croatia

Renewable energy sources and energy efficiency have various effects on environment, economy and society. Because of their prices and impacts, many governments have established support mechanisms to speed up the implementation and investment because of its benefits. It resulted in a share of renewables of over 70% of installed capacities in the energy sector of EU-27. At the same time, despite economic crisis, the number of green jobs recorded its highest level. The purpose of this article is to present a model which assesses middle and long term effects of supporting and investing in renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. Effects are considered holistically and thus every measure is evaluated by its impact on environment, economy and society through the life-cycle of technology. The model is created to facilitate and ensure best investments in the green energy sector which is still in an early phase of development in Croatia. Effects on environment are evaluated by the reduction of greenhouse gasses, effects on society are evaluated by the number of new jobs created, effects on economy by the rise of GDP. Additionally, financial values for the State were given for every consequence in case the measure was supported by the government. Values are estimated as a difference from the business as a usual scenario, in which measures for supporting renewable energy sources and energy efficiency were not implemented. The model gave the following results: the number of new jobs, reduction of greenhouse gasses, rise of GDP, a simple period of return and a net present value for the society calculated from input data. Planned measures and supporting mechanisms until 2020 for renewable energy sources and energy efficiency in Croatia are analysed by the model. One of the results of the developed model is a marginal cost abatement curve of various technologies that enables prioritizing technologies according to costs for the society. It can be concluded that those measures have various impacts on achieving sustainable development. However, for achieving results fully there is a need for additional efforts which will ensure domestic production of low emission technologies, provision of local maintenance and operation as well as local installation of technologies. By providing engineering perspective to power system development issues with the emphases on sustainability, positive and negative impacts of each measure are taken into account. Measures should be assessed from different angles as one-side view does not provide a clear picture and often leads to bad conclusions and doubtful investments.

energy transition; renewable energy sources

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